CHAPTER 319: AYAMARI (3)

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SYSTEM ADDENDUM ADDED BY USER NAME: SC2

ADDENDUM NOTE: Continued from Ayamari infodump 798A.

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Ayamari’s encounter with King Xor’Drel was one of the most entertaining things to happen to her that year. The man’s shameless info dump secured that much. His subsequent confirmation that his portals and teleports were indeed inexorable was something else entirely.

The realm between the ‘here’ and ‘there’ had not been an ordinary planar disruption, but an infinite expanse of never-ending space that he nevertheless stepped right through. It was unlike anything Ayamari had ever seen, and even she could not fathom how such a thing was possible, except for the dead giveaway–the space was infinite. Infinities did not exist outside the deific realm, so thus was the only conclusion.

Even then, deities did not, in Ayamari's experience, hand out infinities for mortals to use as party tricks. Whatever King Xor'Drel was in communion with was something much more and other than the familiar Arzian deities. Xor'Drel could call forth infinite space on a whim, which should annihilate the universe.

Instead, it served as his doormat. Two of the Zenithars had even winced when it appeared, though Zura did not seem to be fazed.

Now, there could be no doubt that he was in possession of deific magicks, but the question remained as to whether he could use it for more than planar mobility. Certainly so by its very nature; the possibilities of such a thing were limitless, by definition. Although, as with all things divine, it was limited by the mortal wielding it. Even if he were limited to ‘just’ deific portals and teleports, Ayamari could think of very few skills that she would rather make impervious to external influence.

Filix Celeritia was everywhere at once, currently working on damage control. He’d spent a much longer time reviewing the documents than it would normally take him to simply read them, and Ayamari could ‘hear’ his telepathic communications. Telepathy was one of the few skills allowed at such world summits, given that absolutely no one would agree to ban its use, and Celeritia was handling just as many different psychic threads at that moment as the rest of the room combined. His only intelligible conversation was with someone who was connected to the Heronwytes, and it was quite urgent. Otherwise, Celeritia was sending out code words and security phrases to various individuals, no doubt initiating all sorts of contingency plans and failsafes.

While telepathy was allowed, raw attributes and their evolutions were so difficult to control that they simply weren’t, which is why King Celeritia was also interacting with nearly everyone in the room. He was listening to the empress, speaking at the center of the group of enraged Timans, whispering with the Mittakans, and asking Umi-Doo and herself for their take on King Xor’Drel’s actions.

“He’s a madman, that’s for sure,” said Umi-Doo. “He’s got enough dirt here to turn the Inward Sea into a fucking mud pit.” His bushy eyebrows quirked up and down as he looked between Ayamari and Celeritia. “If you’ll excuse my colorful language,” he added hastily. “Who would ever expose the fact that they had all of this?”

“Someone gave it to him,” said Ayamari. “I doubt it was a consensual gift. Why would he bother to keep it hidden?”

“No offense, Ayamari, but that’s a very you kind of perspective,” said Umi-Doo. “Not everyone is entirely immune to blowback.”

“No, she’s got a point,” said Celeritia. His voice had a slight waver to it as his physical presence continually transitioned between groups. He’d refused to expend the effort required to address it, since it was something that only Ayamari could detect. “The man lives in an inaccessible dimensional pocket, now being built into a proper kingdom, owes no allegiances to any nation here, and has spent the last three years developing a reputation for handing out valuable intel for free. All the major players will realize that we shouldn’t bite the hand, and anyone who gets uppity won’t be enough of a threat to cow somebody like him.”

Umi-Doo grumbled incoherently for a few seconds. “I suppose he’s also been throwing himself at lethal threats ever since he got here. His risk-benefit analysis is probably skewed.”

“Is it really so bad?” asked Ayamari. “He exposed the corruption in your governments.”

“You think I didn’t know about half this shit?!” Umi-Doo exclaimed. “There’s a way to do these things! I’ll be surprised if we have any less than three successful assassinations before the day is over, with five times as many attempts.” The Iskarim poked at his slate while it floated in the air before him. “For example, here’s one I’m not familiar with. Philippe Bertles. The man’s a Flarehart out in Heronwyte territory, and he’s allegedly been embezzling taxes from the regional Cloudmark. That’s a breach of fealty, and in Heronwyte territory? He’ll be dead inside the hour, regardless of whether any evidence is discovered to prove that the felony even occurred!”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I’ve got the Heronwytes handled for the moment,” said King Celeritia. “Any idea where all of this came from? If even a fraction of it is completely unfounded, we’ll need to squash it as hard and fast as possible.”

“Thrushmahogany,” said Ayamari.

Neither man questioned how Ayamari knew such a thing. They’d learned throughout the decades that it either didn’t matter or they wouldn’t want to know in the first place.

“Damn it to all the hells,” Celeritia growled. “Why is it always Thrushmahogany?”

While that conversation was happening, Ayamari was also tracking the movements of everyone within the building, mostly by habit. She’d long ago watched as someone who shouldn’t be there entered the building and had moved to somewhere that they certainly shouldn’t be.

It had made her mildly curious, but what began as a mild curiosity grew quickly into something more interesting. A small, invisible, incorporeal blade was travelling through the air, far too fast for anyone other than Ayamari and Celeritia to notice, but the latter was discussing his options for containing fallout with Umi-Doo. He was also offering a lucrative trade deal to Ayamari in exchange for confirmation of the allegations in the Xor’Drel files.

And arguing with Princess Ishi.

And debating military relief for Timagrin.

And working out the finer details of Hyrachon theology with the Zenithar. Eschendur had a surprisingly low amount of corruption.

The point: Celeritia was split in too many directions.

Ayamari watched with some amusement, waiting to see where the blade was going. Suddenly, it shifted to the left and set a course directly for Empress Littae’s brainstem. As fast as it was, the caster still threw in a diversion just in case anyone was quick enough. Considering that the addition of homing magic to the projectile failed to set off any of the offensive mana alarms, it was pretty impressive.

Ayamari put a hand out to Celeritia, who stopped talking and frowned, brow furrowed.

“Are you aware of any assassination plot to kill the Empress of Litta?” she asked.

Celeritia’s furrow deepened, and the subtle waver of his voice stilled as the rest of him around the room disappeared. “No, not by anyone here.”

“There is a blade that is about to strike the Empress in the brain.”

“Oh? Where?”

“It is incorporeal and invisible.”

Celeritia’s eyes narrowed as he began to concentrate, and Ayamari saw spiritual mana flooding into them.

“Damn,” he said, seeing the weapon drift lazily in the Empress’s direction. “That is one hell of a blade. Is the assassin still here?”

“Yes. She’s behind the outer courtyard wall on the northeast side. Level 21.”

“Any others?”

“No.”

“And she threw it from outside?”

“No. She threw it from behind the door leading to the lobby atrium, then she teleported outside the courtyard.”

“So she can break high-level warding.” Celeritia glowered at the lobby doorway like it had slipped salt into his tea instead of sugar. “Are the wards even doing anything today?”

“From where she was standing, there was no warding. There is a small error in the runework, creating a two-foot diameter space that is not covered. Coincidentally, someone defeating the warding by exploiting such an error was several thousand times more likely than the presence of someone with deific magicks. King Xor’Drel has significantly altered that statistic.”

“Sure, sure.” Celeritia rubbed at his eyes. “Okay, she could not have found that, or used it, without help.”

“A likely assessment.”

“Do we need to discuss whether Arlo is involved somehow?”

“That she took advantage of the chaos he caused might raise suspicion, but he had nothing to do with it.”

“Good. Glad we cleared that up.” Celeritia watched the knife for another moment before glancing back at her. “So are you going to grab the blade, or…?”

Ayamari raised an eyebrow, then turned and walked through the crowd, carefully sidestepping the statues of people and the waves of chatter drifting between them. She arrived at the ‘Empress’ and waited.

Once the blade was within three attometers of the Empress’s mana structure, Ayamari held out her hand and grabbed the handle. The projectile attempted a correction, but it was too slow. Ayamari had already pulled it a few inches away, and the sudden jerk barely even registered to her. She flicked the blade with the tip of her finger, and the guiding magic was obliterated, leaving it an ‘ordinary’ invisible incorporeal dagger. Three attometers was far too close for a Level 21 to reliably fake. The dagger really had been about to hit the Empress.

It was a real assassination attempt, although it had been made on a fake target.

Ayamari considered how much to tell Celeritia about the Empress’s deception. They were very old friends of a sort, but as the King of Hiward, his loyalties and attitudes might bend her intel to more trouble than it was worth. She’d barely been willing to tell him about Thrushmahogany’s involvement with the Xor’Drel files.

The blade itself was excellent, Celeritia was certainly keen on that, and while she flipped it back and forth, she thought about how bad the outcome would be if she informed such a world leader about the espionage of another such leader. The answer was almost always very bad.

Almost always.

The present circumstances were exceptional. King Xor’Drel’s Dread Star ‘poems’ contained more truth than even he likely knew. They fit so many pieces together, but the full analysis was best saved for when she got around to questioning the colorful outworlder.

Ayamari migrated back to Celeritia and offered him the dagger’s handle. He took the blade and looked it over, letting out a psychically detectable but otherwise physically inaudible ‘whistle’, to take the term rather loosely.

“By the way,” she said, “that’s not Rona Littae.”